ABSTRACT
The work described below was undertaken with a class of 9-year-olds in Medway Junior School, which is situated in the inner city area of Leicester. The environment of Medway Junior consists largely of terraced housing, and is one of the main multi-ethnic areas of the city. The school itself is a typical Victorian two-storey building with a large central hall and classrooms on all sides. It has 290 pupils of whom approximately 50% are Muslim, 30% Hindu, 10% Sikh and 10% Christian, the main languages being Gujerati, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi and English. The school staff, most of whom are English, are assisted by a number of bilingual support teachers and other adults from the local community, and there are close links with tutors and students from the nearby School of Education at Leicester University.
